I'm putting together my first psion. The race will be human, and the focus will be telekinesis. While choosing powers, I've keyed on the special feature of the "Kinetic Trawl" power: "You can use this power unaugmented as a ranged basic attack."

Since human psions get a free, unaugmentable, at-will power, I'm keen to take Kinetic Trawl as that power. But I'm wondering if I shouldn't take something like Static Mote instead. Do I really need a ranged basic when basically every psion power is ranged and at-will?

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Uh, yeah, pretty much all character generation is opinion based. But this question is outlining the specific build decisions and asking if a specific ability really even fits with it (according to others's experience). That's not really opinion based. But whatever.
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James SumnersJul 29 '14 at 14:20

1 Answer
1

There are really only a few times that you're going to need a Ranged Basic Attack (RBA). That would be when you're granted an attack from a leader character. There are certain feats and other abilities that affect ranged basic attacks, but this power would not qualify for those as it doesn't read "Can be used as a Ranged Basic Attack" and is instead used itself when you would make one.

So if you have a Shaman, Warlord or Bard who will be granting attacks in your party, this might be a good choice. But look at your other party members. Most likely you've got a striker or two and a defender. Those guys are going to be getting those granted attacks way more often than you will. It's probably not worth it to invest in that as your bonus at-will.

Something else to consider: as of Essentials, the human can take the encounter power Heroic Effort instead of the bonus at-will. This can be a nice little "failed my save...No I didn't" power or can make a missed attack a hit. It's worth looking at closely before you grab that unaugmentable third at-will.